


journeys at the end of the world

by skuls



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, F/F, Not Canon Compliant, Reunions, Season 5 spec, dont worry this is a safe for cats apocalypse zone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:47:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24955540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skuls/pseuds/skuls
Summary: Melanie doesn't remember what happened after the world ends.(Or: Melanie searches for Georgie in the wake of the apocalypse.)
Relationships: Georgie Barker/Melanie King
Comments: 8
Kudos: 39





	journeys at the end of the world

**Author's Note:**

> i swore i would write melanie/georgie as soon as i had an idea, and then this very randomly occurred to me the other day and i got very excited. i love headcanons/fics where georgie and melanie are fighting off the apocalypse together, but between the current s5 episodes and private speculation as to how the other characters might come into the show again, i started thinking about how interesting it would have been if martin and jon found melanie and georgie in their respective domains, and then this happened. it is pure spec, but i've had fun with it. 
> 
> warning up front for some violence mentions as it relates to the slaughter, and discussion of melanie's trauma as portrayed on the show. i hope i did melanie's arc justice here because it's one of the ones i really like on the show.

Melanie doesn't remember what happened after the world ends. 

She remembers before, before it all fell apart. She was in bed with Georgie and the Admiral, lazy Saturday morning that melted into afternoon, and she wasn't worrying for once. The anxiety hadn't completely left when she quit, because of course it didn't, and the scraps of information they'd gotten from Basira soon after didn't help—Daisy missing, Jon and Martin hiding in Scotland, Elias out of prison and the Institute half destroyed… It was a lot. ("Thank god you got out," Georgie kept saying the night after, kept stroking Melanie's hair over and over again and holding her hand. "I'm so glad you got out.") But things got peaceful in the weeks after. Basira told them Jon and Martin were safe, at least—even after everything that happened, Melanie couldn't help but be glad to hear that—and there was no sign of Elias, and Melanie was _out_ , anyway. That's what Georgie kept telling her, that she was out and she shouldn't worry about it. 

So they'd fallen into this blissful sort of peacefulness in the day to day, between trying to find a routine in this new life of theirs. They were _happy._ Somehow Melanie still remembers that—maybe they are letting her remember, part of the torture of the new world. They were happy and then the world ended, and she can't remember how she ended up here, and now she can't find Georgie. 

She doesn't know where she is. It isn't because she can't _see_ where she is, she's sure of that; seeing wouldn't help a goddamn thing. She thinks she's somewhere red and hot, somewhere choked with copper in the air; she's breathing it in. There's music here, discordant clashes of heavy metal and wailing of bagpipes and the shrill sound of a flute or pipe or something, and none of it is _comforting_ , it all shrieks like nails on a chalkboard. There's people here, too, or things that used to be people, shouting and snarling and fighting. Bullets and blood and clash of metal. Screaming. 

Melanie knows all of this in some of the more lucid moments, even if she doesn't know where she _is,_ or how to get out. But it's hard to make sense of it all, through the cluster of noise and chaos and pain and fear and _anger._

She is angry, too. A part of her is lucid enough to realize that. Angrier than she has been in months. 

\---

She's in the halls of an abandoned hospital watching Sarah Baldwin pull her skin off. She's arguing with her old team, surrounded by their looks of disgust. The comments are piling up all over the Internet, trashing her, destroying her reputation. Jon's shouting at her in the Archives, refusing to believe her, telling her _she's_ crazy. She's crammed in Elias's office with all the others and he's telling her he's trapped her here, that she can't quit and she might just die instead. She's running from something that wants to kill her. She's a teenager again, in the midst of some horrible row with her mother in the kitchen, shouting and shouting. Someone's stabbed her in the shoulder, shot a bullet at her leg, cut the bullet _out_ and it's Basira holding her down and she thought she could _trust_ her if no one else, she at least had Basira. They're telling her Tim and Daisy died. Elias is smirking at her as he pushes knowledge into her head, looking at her like she's a fucking _bug_ . She's sitting across from some police officer who's explaining to her that her father died peacefully, lying through his teeth, making it all up, and she wants to kill him for it, she really does. She's seven and scrapes her knee when someone shoves her so she trips them. She's twelve and knocks a cousin's tooth out during a nasty Christmas argument. She's bickering on shoots. She's arguing with her dad about her mum getting sick; she's shouting at her mum's doctors because they're doing _nothing_ , not even _trying_. There are Flesh avatars choking the narrow hallways and she's pushing them back, slicing through them, tearing them apart. She's stabbing Jon in the shoulder. She's trying to poison Elias. She can't get anyone to turn the tape recorders off. She's holding an awl in her hand, staring down at it, the last thing she'll ever really see. 

It never ends, stream after stream of endless, boundless fury. Fury and anger and bloodlust and _fear._ She's still fighting. She can still hurt things that want to hurt her. She can hear it all, every scenario, can even sort of picture it; they get all the voices exactly right. She shouts and screams and fights, and it never lets up, not for a second. 

When she has the wherewithal to consider where she might be, she thinks she is in some sort of war zone. It sounds like that the most, bullets and explosions and blades and blood and furious people packing in on all sides. But sometimes it sounds like a slaughterhouse, the screams of humans and animals alike all around, and sometimes it just sounds like things from her life. People from her life. Most of the time, it doesn't feel real, but every now and then, Melanie is fooled. It's all too easy to be fooled. 

She's lost Georgie. Her and the Admiral both. And the strange thing is that she doesn't remember _leaving_ them, doesn't think she _would've_ left Georgie in the first place. Not after all she's done for Melanie, not after everything they've been to each other. She wouldn't. But she can't find her and she can't remember leaving, or losing them, or someone taking them away. She can't find Georgie's flat with that lovely lumpy sofa, and the kitchen island with the marbled granite, and the balcony where you can sit and listen to the city, and the bed with the soft sheets; she's memorized every inch of it with her cane, and the memories she has of how it used to look, and she knows she isn't there. (She doesn't even know where _there_ is.) And she can't find Georgie, no matter how hard she looks. 

(Sometimes, in the lucid moments, she screams for Georgie. But she doesn't think Georgie can hear her.)

(Sometimes, in the lucid moments, she wonders if Georgie is dead. She wonders.)

(She can't think that way, though. She can't. She holds onto what hope she can in this place, between the anger and the fear. It isn't much but it's what she has. So she tells herself that Georgie is alive, that Georgie _must_ have survived.)

She tries to kill Elias. She tries to kill Jon, when he miraculously wakes up. She kills the Flesh monsters without even thinking. It's a cycle, again and again. She remembers telling Jon that the anger felt good, that she wanted it there. She doesn't know if she wants it anymore, but she knows it's here, and she doesn't know how to let go of it. Doesn't know how to do anything else but fight. If there was anything else, she's forgotten it now, since the world ended. She thinks she's trapped again, trapped in a way she swore she wouldn't be when she woke up in the hospital with her face covered in bandages and felt sweet relief in realizing it had worked. 

She doesn't want to be trapped again, but she isn't sure she has the strength to find her way out. 

\---

Melanie hears familiar voices one day, floating out of the mist she thinks is red. (It _feels_ red. She can't see it, but it feels red.) The thud of footsteps that aren't right because no one runs here, no one _can_ run, and when she hears the drifting voices, anger sinks in immediately, because of _course_ they would be able to run, of _course_ they'd be able to escape. 

It's Jon. Jon and fucking Martin—Martin who abandoned them, Martin who disappeared and left them alone; Jon who survived when Tim didn't, who left them alone as much as Martin did, who didn't believe her and let her be trapped and held her down and sliced into her _leg_ while she was asleep, and she woke up with him staring down at her with those glowing fucking eyes and the tape recorder whirring… She can hear it here too, underneath their voices, the whir of that fucking tape recorder, and she doesn't want to be recorded again, she doesn't, and she doesn't know why they're _here._ Why they can just walk through, sit themselves right down in the midst of this bloodlust while Jonathan fucking Sims monologues into a fucking _tape recorder_ , why they haven't done anything to help her or Georgie—they're not even _looking_ for her, not even looking—and Melanie feels the anger come over her like a wave. 

She fumbles out and finds a knife. There is always a knife. 

But something changes when her hand closes around the handle, when she picks it up and pictures attacking them—really, really attacking them, hurting them, killing them. There are moments where things snap into place and she remembers other things—moments where things were almost okay. She and Martin were together when they got that horrible call from Basira, when they thought they'd lost Daisy and Jon along with Tim, and they'd cried together on the floor of the Archives office, from fatigue and fear and horror and even genuine grief. And Jon… he'd left and he'd trapped them there and been gone so much and cut the bullet out of her leg—but he'd done that to save her. He _said_ he'd done that to help her. And he told her how to quit. He told her how to quit, and called the ambulance after she'd done it, and sat with her on the floor til they came—no recorders, no conversation, just… this. She'd called him a friend once at the end. She remembers that now. 

The knife tumbles out of her hand—or maybe it was never there to begin with. She stumbles back, hands to her face, and shakes her head. She doesn't want to do this. She doesn't want to _be_ this. She told Georgie that, once, before she quit, lying on her living room rug and looking up at the ceiling with the Admiral wedged between them, and she said, "The anger feels safe still. But I… don't _want_ to be angry anymore." 

She can still hear the drone of Jon's spooky Archivist voice, through the screams and the shouts and the peppering of gunfire. She stumbles forward one step, two. She shouts, "Jon? Martin?" and tries to follow the voices. She isn't sure what they're doing here or where they're going, but they feel _real._ Not like the things with the voices of the people she cares about. If she can find them, maybe they can explain what's happening—Jon is supposed to _Know_ everything with those spooky fucking powers of his, isn't he? Maybe—maybe they can help her find Georgie. 

She calls and calls, pushes through copper-tinged air and the press of frightened people (real people, she knows, trapped here like her), ducks bullets and the slash of blades and the heat of explosions, going towards where she thinks the voices were. But there's nothing there. She gets turned around, can't tell where the voices are coming from, reaches out and finds nothing. She doesn't think they can hear—and soon after, she can't hear them anymore. Not at all. 

Melanie sits, exhausted, maybe even defeated. It might not be safe to sit here, but she doesn't care. She sits, curled in a ball, arms wrapped around her legs, and she presses her cheek to her knees and thinks of Georgie. Tries to remember the things she talked about in therapy, the progress she's made. "I don't want to be angry anymore," she whispers, muffled by her jacket and the sounds of war all around her. "I don't want to be angry anymore. I don't want to be angry anymore."

\---

The more Melanie thinks on it, the more she thinks she might be in the Slaughter. Makes sense, doesn't it? That she'd be inside the Fear that nearly took her over? She severed her connection to the Eye, so she's not there, and she's glad of that. (She won't hold back if she ever finds Elias again. She's not letting go of her anger towards him. He deserves that much.)

She wonders if Basira is in the Eye, if all the Fears or whatever have these jolly little homes that they trap people in. She wonders where Jon and Martin were, if they were anywhere. She wonders if Daisy is still lost. She wonders where Georgie is. 

Melanie tries to hold onto lucidity. She plays the good memories in her mind like movies sometimes—a lot of things from before the Archives, and a few things even after. She remembers the way the world was before the apocalypse and holds onto that; she's not holding out hope that the world would ever go back to normal, because apocalypses don't seem to work like that, but she wants to remember the Before. She picks a direction and walks in it, every single day—she remembers being wine-drunk with Basira in the Institute once, somewhere between furious and on the verge of tears, and Basira was talking about the Unknowing in a muffled voice, so Melanie asked how she got out, and she told her: she picked a direction and followed it out. So Melanie is going to do that, too. 

She still hears the voices, although most of the time she can tell they aren't real. They're trying to make her angry, trying to drive her to destroy. It's her mother and her father in their worst moments, it's Jon being a pompous ass, it's the voices of the friends she lost with her reputation, the shouts of the dead, Elias's smug voice goading her to kill him. Sometimes they even try to replicate Georgie—have her sling accusations and heavy-handed statements like it's trying to start a fight, or worse, have her cry for help. (Those are worse, the Georgie-farces. Those are the hardest to listen to, and Melanie still breaks sometimes, still runs and shouts her name, slings accusations back, tries to storm off. But she gets practiced at pushing it away. Reminds herself again and again that it isn't Georgie, it _isn't Georgie._ She knows the difference, after Martin and Jon passed through, and she'll keep looking until she finds the real thing.)

Melanie isn't sure how long she walks. How many times she breaks and has to claw her way back to lucidity. She's surrounded by sounds of pain and fighting and horror, and there's so many people suffering that she can't help, since she can barely help herself. She loses track of the direction she was going in, or the direction she came from, dozens upon dozens of times. But she manages to keep walking. Keeps thinking of Georgie, and Basira and Daisy and even Jon. Of everyone else she left behind in London (wherever London _is_ , if it even exists anymore). She keeps going and keeps going. 

And finally, she reaches a point where she can't feel the fog anymore. Can't hear the sharp sound of bullets or screams, can't smell blood on the air. Wherever she is isn't _better_ —there are bugs and the smell of rotting meat, and all around her, the odd feeling of dirt and filth in the air, along the backs of her legs and caked in her hair. It's not better. But it's _different,_ not the horror and fury of the Slaughter, and Melanie nearly sobs with relief. She's out, she made it out. 

She calls Georgie's name on an impulse, screams it at the top of her lungs. ( _Georgie? Georgie! Georgie, it's me, it's Melanie, I'm here._ ) There's no answer. It doesn't take her long to piece together that Georgie isn't here. 

But she is _somewhere_ —Melanie refuses to consider the idea that Georgie wouldn't have survived. She is somewhere, because Georgie is strong and unafraid, and touched by the Fears, the way Melanie was. She is somewhere, and she must be okay, and Melanie is going to find her. 

"I'm coming to find you, Georgie Barker," she murmurs, as if there is a tape recorder listening. (Thank god there's not, but… you spend enough time at the Institute, you start looking for them automatically.) "Just wait. I'm going to find you, and we're going to be okay." 

It feels odd to make promises in a world like this, but Melanie's unwilling not to promise. Georgie was there for her through the worst of it, and Melanie loves her—really, really loves her ( _a whole lot,_ she'd say to Georgie sickly-sweet, just to make her crack up)—and she won't leave her alone through this. So she's going to find her, and that's the end of it. It just is. 

\---

Walking through hellscape after hellscape is a lot less hard when a fear god isn't trying to invade your brain by clawing its way in. But that still doesn't make it _easy._

Melanie walks. She isn't sure how long—time is strange, even outside the Slaughter. She doesn't have to sleep, doesn't really even have to rest much, but she'll sit for a bit if it feels safe to do so. (Never for long, never; she has somewhere to be.) She walks through a land of sickness and dirt, and then through an area full of circus music that reminds her too much of the nightmares she had after Basira came home with haunted eyes and first-degree burns on her arms. (In the second one, they use voices too, but they're all wrong. It's supposed to be her parents or her friends or Georgie, but it sounds wrong, and Melanie can _tell_ . Just like she could tell with Sasha. She can shake it off easier because she can tell, but that doesn't mean it doesn't affect her—something pretending to be her father calls her _little moth_ in a voice that is not his, and Melanie cries for what feels like an hour curled on the ground that smells of dead things. All this time, and losing her father still hurts like a lost limb. Worse since Elias, of course.) She keeps going. She just keeps going. 

It's during one of these moments of sitting that Melanie finds herself not alone for the first time since the end of the world. She's sitting up against something that might have once been a tree, and she hears a plaintive _meow._ She thinks about trying to find the cat for a moment, but decides against it—she couldn't save the Admiral, and it feels like a betrayal to be with any other cat. And anyways, she wasn't much of a cat person before the Admiral. And besides, what if it isn't a cat? It could be anything out there just trying to get her to come close enough.

She doesn't really realize until the meows come closer, until something furry butts familiarly up against her dangling hand. That's when it slides into place: how familiar the meows sound, how… _familiar_ this cat's presence feels. This can't be something pretending to be a cat—this has to be…

"Admiral?" she asks, voice going high and breaking at the end. 

The Admiral meows eagerly and climbs fully into her lap. Melanie gathers him up in her arms immediately, holding onto him tightly and pressing her face into his fur—she knows she's crying, but she makes no move to wipe away the tears. All she can do is hold on as tight as she can—she never thought she'd see this cat again. The Admiral, who normally is more of a lap cuddler than a full-on hugger—he squirms like mad when Georgie holds him like a baby—curls into her chest as naturally as anything and lets her sob into his fur. He smells like dirt, not unpleasantly, and has a new scar on his side, but he's alive, sitting there grooming her hair like nothing is wrong. 

"I missed you so much, you little monster," Melanie says when she can speak again. "What the hell _happened_ to you? I couldn't—I couldn't find you. I don't remember leaving you, and I know Georgie wouldn't, either."

The Admiral bonks his head against her chin, purring contentedly. 

"Right." Melanie scratches behind the ears, which she knows he loves. "Well, I'm glad you're alive, and I'm glad you found me. You're gonna stick with me a while longer, yeah? We're going to find Georgie." She squeezes him closer, just a little; there's no one to see, and the Admiral isn't protesting. "She's going to be so happy to see you," she adds. "Probably give you a bath. You'd love that, huh?" 

The Admiral has no comment on that, which isn't a surprise; little fucker _hates_ baths. He stays curled in Melanie's arms, though, and Melanie forces herself to relax, leans back and lets the tension slide away, just a little, as the Admiral's purring rumbles through her chest. They'll leave soon to keep looking, but for a moment—just for a moment—she wants to enjoy not being alone. 

\---

Melanie sort of moved in with Georgie on accident. It's sort of funny how much of it happened on accident—them living together, Georgie driving Melanie to therapy every week, the Admiral imprinting wholeheartedly on Melanie. ("Not that I'd ever say you're not special," Georgie said teasingly one day, when the Admiral had taken up residence in Melanie's lap and refused to move, "but he does this with everyone. He's a lovable cat. He'd imprint on a burglar." Melanie could believe that, if the Admiral was as attached to Jon as she's heard.) 

It happened in the six months between the Unknowing and Jon's return when they were both sort of emotional wrecks between Jon being sort-of dead, and Tim and Daisy being actually dead (they'd thought), and the knowledge that she was trapped, and the lingering effects of what Elias had done… it had sort of all just come together. Melanie spent the night after Jon showed up in the hospital at Georgie's, curled up beside her in her bed, because neither of them wanted to be alone. And then one night became two nights became four, and then a week, then two—alternating between the guest bedroom where Jon used to sleep and Georgie's room, sometimes the couch in the living room. Sometimes Melanie retreated to the guest bed just to give Georgie _space_ —this wasn't her grief or her trauma or her fight, and the last thing Melanie wanted to do was to put it on Georgie, because it wasn't her responsibility. But half the time Georgie would show up a while after she went to bed and murmur, "Is this okay?" before sliding between the sheets behind Melanie. (Melanie can't remember who would reach first, but one of them would always reach out and take the other's hand, and that's how they'd sleep, holding hands.) 

("I know I can't really feel fear," Georgie said one night, sometime after midnight with her cold fingers clinging tight to Melanie's, "but I—I still feel _grief._ I still feel love and pain and anxiety… and I may not fully understand what's going on in that Institute, or what's happening to you all when you're there, but it… it worries me, Mel. It might be the only thing that scares me. You and Jon are just… there, and it's consuming you, and I don't want to lose either of you to this. I… I don't want to lose _you,_ Melanie, I…" And her voice broke at the end of it, and Melanie had rolled over and wrapped her arms around Georgie, kissing her hard, and they lay like that for the rest of the night, trembling in the middle of the bed and clinging to each other like you would cling to rocks in a storm. And at the end of the night, when Georgie was nearly asleep and the sky was beginning to lighten outside, Melanie put her mouth close to Georgie's ear and whispered, "You won't lose me." 

And even though that night was weeks before she started to really get better—even now, Melanie is unsure as to whether or not she can fully say she's _gotten_ better—she knows she really meant it. And that she means it now.) 

"D'you know how we met, your mum and I?" Melanie asks the Admiral at some point on their journey, because it's better to talk to a cat than nobody, and she thinks she's been going quietly insane ever since she woke up after the end of the world. (And yes, a part of her feels ridiculous referring to Georgie as the Admiral's mother; that stuff used to drive her crazy before she met Georgie. But doing that always makes Georgie laugh like crazy, in the way that means she thinks it's silly too but she secretly likes it, and it honestly _fits._ Georgie and the Admiral are a good little duo, and Melanie won't fool herself into thinking she herself is the favorite. The Admiral might be a docile sweet little idiot cat, but Melanie thinks he'd claw anyone who tried to hurt Georgie to shreds.) 

The Admiral presses against her leg in that way he's got of letting Melanie know he's with her—genius cat, she thinks, definitely the best of his breed—so she keeps going, talking in time with her steps into the sucking dirt. "We were a big bunch of ghost nerds, her and I," she says. "Met doing research. She had a part-time stint on one of those London ghost tour things, and I was trying to get Ghost Hunt UK off the ground. She told a good ghost story. Didn't hurt that she was cute, either."

The Admiral makes a cat-like sound of something that might be agreement or dissent. Or uncaring. Or hunger. (Melanie's wondered about feeding the Admiral, but what the hell is she going to feed him? Georgie always gave him that godawful wet food shit, and there's obviously none of that around. She's settled for hoping he doesn't get hungry in the same way _she_ doesn't, but she still worries—doesn't want to dump a half-starved cat in Georgie's arms when she finds her.) The sound of wailing around them increases suddenly, and the dirt makes that loud sucking sound again, so Melanie reaches down and scoops up the Admiral on instinct. He's not complaining, either. Her theory is they're wherever Daisy ended up for months on end—the Buried?—but she honestly doesn't want to think about that. 

"I wanted her to go on Ghost Hunt UK with me, you know," she tells the cat, who is apparently cleaning his paws like there is _no_ apocalypse going on. "She said no. And then she started her podcast and it was about a million times better than my stupid YouTube show. She always watched, though, and told me it was good. Rotten liar." She says this with affection, resting her chin on the Admiral's back. The Admiral squirms up then to drape himself over her neck like a scarf. Sure, why not. "That was before everything went to shit, you know," she adds. "Before I ruined my fucking life. That's when I fell in love with her. She wasn't just some… port in the storm, okay? She was the girl who could tell a ghost story a million times better than I ever could and scare the shit out of me. She was one of the funniest people I've ever met. I plagiarized all her jokes for my show—don't tell, okay? She was… she was beautiful, and sweet, and smart, and I've loved her for a long time. And I didn't know she loved me back. And then I just felt lucky that she did." 

Melanie feels tears coming to the surface, and she runs them away angrily with the back of one hand. The world howls around her, uncaring about her or Georgie or any of this. The Admiral says nothing, of course; he's a cat. 

She rubs at her cheeks and says, "I want to find all of them, if I can. Basira was… she was the only friend I had left, before I got out, and she was the only one at the Institute who… I missed her after I left. I missed the people we used to be before things went bad. I was kind of friends with Daisy before all this, and I don't want her to die. Jon and Martin… fuck. They tried, and that matters. And I told Jon he was a friend before all this, and I want to mean it. He means a lot to Georgie anyway, so I need to make sure we make amends. And all the people from before the Institute… I really doubt they're okay, but I hope they are. And I'd like to see them again. But… all my family is gone, my parents… And everyone else…" She tries to form the words, fails. Can't piece it together. Clears her throat and goes on, shakily, uncertainly: "What I'm trying to say, Admiral, is that… I want to find everyone, but I'd be okay if I couldn't. If I couldn't… find anyone but Georgie. She's… I need to find her. I need her. I _need_ her."

The Admiral mews in her ear. Melanie scratches at the base of his tail, sniffling. Thinking about that promise she made months ago, how badly she wants to keep it. 

"This isn't a statement, by the way," she adds after a moment, in case the Eye is still watching her. (She severed that connection, it doesn't own any part of her, and it won't. But the paranoia of being watched is hard to shake.) "This isn't for you. None of it. It's mine. It's mine, and I won't let you touch it. I swear to fucking god."

If she's offended something—the Eye itself, or fucking Elias, watching from wherever he is—it doesn't say anything. The world goes on, a walking corpse of what something destroyed. (She doesn't know who destroyed the world, whose ritual worked, but she has her theories.) And she and the Admiral keep walking, through this land of sucking, choking mud. 

\---

Melanie has been walking for a long time when she hears the door, creaking open in a way she's heard a dozen times. She doesn't need sight to know what's happening. "Helen?" she says, a brisk sort of acceptance in her voice. The others may not fully trust Helen, but she's found no reason not to. At least not yet. 

"Hello, Melanie." Helen sounds almost amused. "You're certainly a lot more welcoming than your coworkers."

"I _quit_ ," Melanie snaps automatically, grit in her voice, before what Helen said clicks into place. "Wait—who have you seen? Basira?"

"The Archivist. And his boyfriend." Helen _definitely_ sounds amused—she can hear it in her voice. "Didn't know about that development, did you?"

"What were they _doing_?" Melanie presses—although no, she didn't. Good for them for getting their shit together. 

"Traveling through the apocalypse. Killing some things—they got the thing that killed your friend Sasha, and then Jude Perry, and now I believe they've moved on to Jared Hopworth. Which is good news for us, right?"

It's not _bad_ news, she guesses—Melanie remembers how hard she tries to kill Jared before without success. But she's still not sure she completely understands. "But what are they— _why_ are they killing things? What's their… I dunno, end goal?"

"Saving the world? Killing your old boss? Something noble like that. Like I said, they haven't been very polite to me," says Helen. 

Melanie sighs a little—she likes Helen, sure, but she's not really up for a vague conversation right now. She scoops up the Admiral where he's coiling through her legs and says, "Not that I'm _not_ happy to see you, Helen, but why are you here? Has something happened?"

"I saw you escape your domain," Helen says easily. "Excellent work, Melanie, really quite impressive. I guess your connection to the Eye was good for _something,_ right?"

"Sure," Melanie mutters, scratching the cat behind the ears. 

"And I was thinking over our friendship, and how nice you were to me in the Archives, and how terribly sad you were to be alone—and I got to thinking. Martin made a suggestion to me when we talked earlier, one he was unwilling to take for love of his dear Archivist." Helen pauses, always one of the dramatics, before adding, "He wanted to know if I could give him a shortcut."

Something catches in Melanie's chest. Something strange and heavy, that feels almost like hope. She steadies herself, unwilling to get too hopeful, and says in an even tone, "A shortcut? To—to _where_?"

"You've been looking for her, right?" says Helen, kinder this time. "Your girlfriend, the one you love? Georgina Barker? I can take you to her. I know where she is."

Melanie takes a shaky breath, tightening her grip on the Admiral until he yelps indignantly. It's the only thing she's wanted for such a long time, the only thing she's hoped for, so badly that this only feels like it could be a trick. How is it possible that exactly what she needs is going to appear exactly out of thin air, that convenient? Things like that don't happen to her. "How—how do I know this isn't a trick?" she says sharply.

Helen laughs a little, in a way that should probably be unsettling, but isn't. "Because we're _friends_ , Melanie," she says. "We've helped each other before—why shouldn't I do it again? I can make a door for you, and take you to where your girl is. I can assure you that you _will_ come out on the other end of my halls. Why shouldn't you trust this promise?"

The Admiral is wriggling in her arms, but Melanie doesn't want to let him down yet. She says, "You won't… take either of us? Me or the Admiral?"

"No, no, no, of course not. What need do I have of a cat?" Maybe Melanie's imagining it, but she thinks she can hear Helen smiling. "Make your decisions quickly, Melanie. Your Georgie has missed you as much as you've missed her."

Melanie chews at her lower lip, a habit she's never been able to break. Takes a deep breath, thinking of Georgie. Holding onto the picture in her mind, the moment of the two of them together in bed before the end of the world—Georgie's arm around her, Georgie's hair hanging in her face, legs tangled together, hands tangled together too. She would've held on tighter if she'd known what she had to lose. She's missed her so much. 

"Okay," she says. "Okay, I'll do it." Helen _has_ been a sort of a friend all this time, has been willing to help despite all the mistrust—and anyways, the risk is worth it, for Georgie. 

"I'm so glad." Helen lays a hand on Melanie's arm, her fingers sharp and unusual feeling, but not painful. It's just a hand on her arm. "Come this way. I'll bring you to the other side."

\---

Georgie isn't there when the door shuts behind her. Melanie should've known. Helen assured her she was in the right place, that all she had to do was search, but Melanie doesn't have much faith in what Helen said after not finding her on the other side of that door. 

She shifts the irritable Admiral against her shoulder and shouts, at the top of her lungs, "Georgie!" There's no answer. There's nothing _here_ : no sounds, no smells, nothing to immediately identify it. It just seems _bleak_. "Georgie?" Melanie calls again, shifting the Admiral again and wondering if this was all a mistake. 

She takes one step, another. The ground is not flat under her feet—there are dozens of ridges, not like hills, but like lumpy lines under the ground. It makes her think of when her dad took her hiking once as a kid, when they constantly had to step over tree roots. The Admiral makes a _mrr_ -ing sound and bats at the air with his paws. "Georgie!" Melanie calls, frustration rising in her like tears, stinging at her nose. "Goddamnit it, Helen, you told me you would— _Georgie_ !" Step after stumbling step, and there's still no sound around her. She can't hear anything, and she suddenly can't think of anything but Georgie dead—being too late to save her, finding nothing but her corpse because she did it, she didn't hold on tight enough and lost her and didn't find her in time—and she really is crying now, tears running down her face. " _Georgie!_ " she shouts again, nearly screaming this time, as loud as she ever has. 

And then she hears another voice, rising uncertainly over the landscape of roots and nothing else: "Melanie?"

Melanie whirls in the direction of the voice and immediately starts running, the Admiral bouncing wildly in her arms. "Georgie!" she shouts again, and hears the responding frantic, relieved, " _Melanie_!" 

Melanie runs, listening to the pound of Georgie's footsteps coming closer and closer, until they collide together, Georgie's arms flying around her and holding her tight, squashing the Admiral between them. Melanie's got one hand still supporting the Admiral and the other is clutching at Georgie's shirt, and Georgie's murmuring, "Oh my god, oh my god," kissing Melanie all over her face, kissing the Admiral, too. Melanie presses her forehead to Georgie's, whispers, "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine—it can't hurt me here, but I couldn't leave. Jesus Christ, Melanie—I was so worried. I couldn't find you. I thought I'd lost you." Georgie sounds on the verge of tears—she doesn't cry much, but it sounds like she's crying now. 

"I came looking for you." Melanie shifts the Admiral into Georgie's eagerly waiting arms and presses her palm to Georgie's jaw. "I got out of the Slaughter. I got myself out. And I wanted to find you, I've been looking all this time—Georgie, I've missed you so much. So fucking much."

"You found me," Georgie says, and she's laughing a little when she says it, almost in disbelief. "You found me. Melanie, oh my god."

Melanie presses forward to kiss her, kiss her the way she's wanted to all this time, and Georgie kisses her back. They stand locked in this odd little embrace, kissing and kissing with the best cat in the world wriggling between them, and when Georgie pulls back, all Melanie can do is say, "I love you." She's said it before, it isn't the first time, but it feels significant now in a way it hasn't before. And she knows that she'll never stop saying it now. Never. 

\---

"How did you find the Admiral?" Georgie asks later, when they've settled. Georgie's made a place, apparently, that feels safe, where she can rest sometimes. ("Wherever this is," she said earlier, "it isn't as bad for me. Maybe because of what happened to me in university. I don't know.") They've been talking about leaving here—Georgie doesn't know if she can, but Melanie thinks she can get her out. She isn't sure where else they can go, but somewhere not here sounds good. Surely there is somewhere safe out there. 

"He found _me_ ," Melanie says, drawing her fingers slow through Georgie's hair in the way that makes her all shivery. "Just showed up one day and told me to snap out of it. He's a strict one, the Admiral." 

Georgie laughs, and Melanie hears a muffled kiss that probably means she's kissing the Admiral. "He's smart. He's the smartest cat in the world," she says. "I thought—I held onto hope that you might still be alive, but him… I thought he _had_ to be dead." The Admiral meows, crawling up between them, and Georgie kisses him again. "Jon was right when he said you'd survive the apocalypse, I guess," she says, an edge in her voice somewhere between affection and anger. 

"He survived, by the way," says Melanie, thinking she might want to know. "Jon. Martin, too. I… heard them in the Slaughter. They didn't hear me, though. But Helen's seen them, too."

"Helen saw them?" Georgie shifts, pressing her face against Melanie's shoulder. "Did she say what they were doing?"

"According to Helen, killing monsters. And probably killing Elias, too. And _maybe_ trying to save the world."

Georgie sighs, intertwines her fingers with Melanie's and lifts their hands together. "It's already ended. Could it even be saved at this point?"

"I don't know," Melanie mumbles. "I don't."

Georgie kisses the back of Melanie's hand, and then her knuckles. "What a fucking mess," she mumbles. 

Melanie agrees with that sentiment. She curls into Georgie, shifting to her side, feels the Admiral shift between them. "We could… try," she says tentatively. "If they're trying… maybe we could find them. And… try, too." 

"You want to try and find them?" Georgie sounds surprised, although not opposed. 

"Well… what else are we going to do?" Melanie asks, shrugging. "I mean… end of the world, right? I'm assuming we aren't still in London, and we might not be able to ever get back home."

"No… I don't think we can," Georgie murmurs. She squeezes Melanie's hand. "I'm not opposed to it. I just… you've gone through so much because of this, Melanie. Gone through so much with… I don't want to do anything that will get you hurt, or make things bad, I don't… you've come so far."

"I know," Melanie says. "I know I have. And I don't think I've lost much of that… I got myself out of the Slaughter. It was after I heard them, but it was me who got out. It was me."

"It was you," Georgie agrees, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. 

"I won't go back to the Institute. I won't do that. But… I don't think this is the same." Melanie sighs. "This isn't a world anymore where I can just leave things behind and move on with my life. The thing I was trying to escape _is_ the world. And we could just try to live here and not get involved, but I dunno if that's an option anymore." She presses her face into Georgie's neck, adds, "We don't have to do this. I'm happy long as I'm with you. This is what I need. But maybe if there's a way to turn things back…" 

"I know what you mean." Georgie sighs, too. "I just need you safe. You and the Admiral. I need you both to stay safe."

"Include yourself in that," Melanie says sternly, poking her in the shoulder. "We can't do this without you. I'll be a horrible cat mother, I'll forget to feed him and everything."

Georgie laughs again. "Okay, and me, too. Don't worry, I'm not leaving you again. I'm not. I can't do that again."

"Good," says Melanie, firmly, kissing Georgie again as a sort of a seal. "Good." 

Georgie rolls towards Melanie, an arm over her hip, one hand ghosting over her cheek. "You want to find them?" she says, gently. 

"Yeah. Yeah, I… I think we should find Basira at least. She's probably been alone in all this. And Jon and Martin…" Melanie's face screws up a little in saying this. She's still not sure how she feels about them in the end, but she doesn't think this feeling is a bad one. "Well, if they're trying to save the world, it can't hurt to try and get in on that, right?" she finishes, finally. "And I know you've been worried about him. Don't tell me you haven't."

"You're right. I have." Georgie swallows, pushes hair behind Melanie's ear. "You sure about this?"

"I am," Melanie says. "What about you?"

"I'm fine. I am." Georgie puts her head down, slots their fingers back together. Pets the Admiral along his back until he's purring rumbly, pleasantly. "We're gonna be okay," she says softly. 

"Yeah," says Melanie, "yeah, we are." 

She can't say if either of them are correct, or if either of them really completely believe that. But lying here, in one of the safer pockets of the destroyed world, _together,_ Melanie can honestly say that the sentiment doesn't feel wrong. 

\---

They don't sleep. There's no sleeping here. But they lie there for a long time, tangled up in each other, before they decide to get up and start moving again. 

Sometime in the quiet, Georgie leans over and whispers, "You _found_ me," her tone somewhere between amused and deeply affectionate. "You walked through a literal _hellscape_ looking for me."

"Well, yeah," Melanie says, smirking. Maybe her first smirk since the end of the world. "Helen helped."

"It was mostly you," Georgie says. "I just—I can't _believe_ it. I mean, I wanted to find you, of course, and I tried, but I couldn't… and you… you found me, Mel. Who do you think you are, Orpheus?"

"First off, no. No, I do not. That's cliche, and besides that, Orpheus didn't even do it _right_ in the end," Melanie says sternly. The Admiral makes a sound like he agrees. 

"Hmm. Still romantic," says Georgie, and Melanie can hear the smile in her voice. "What about Odysseus?"

"He was a dick! Georgie, please, stop with the Greek mythology references."

"Never," Georgie says, and the moment's so ridiculous that they both bust out laughing. Georgie kisses her palm once, twice, and adds in a quieter voice, "Thanks. Thank you for finding me, Melanie."

Melanie can't joke about it anymore. "Of course," she says, throat thick. "I… couldn't have done this without you, Georgie."

"You could have," says Georgie, supportive til the end. "You're strong, Melanie. You would've been just fine."

"Would you _stop_ shooting down all my romantic declarations, Barker?" Melanie says, only faking her frustration to make Georgie giggle. "I wouldn't have _wanted_ to, okay? I needed you and I found you and that's the end of it."

"Right," Georgie says. "Well, I'm really, really glad you did."

Melanie hmms in response, pushing her face into Georgie's neck. Georgie's arms come around her gently, and she whispers, "I really love you, you know. I love you so much." 

Melanie feels like she might cry again, but she's not sure if she has the energy for it. She isn't sure what she'd be crying _about_ —she's happy. The world's ended, and it's horrible, and so much of what came before it was horrible, and she's lost a lot, but she's with Georgie now, and she's happy. She says, her words a buzz against Georgie's throat, "I love you, too."

\---

Melanie doesn't remember what happened right after the world ends. Doesn't remember how it happened. Doesn't remember when she lost Georgie and the Admiral. But she remembers how she found them again. And she isn't alone now, not anymore. 

She lets that be enough. 

**Author's Note:**

> hit me up on tumblr at @ghostbustermelanieking!


End file.
